Shane Darwent

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Shane Darwent

Headshot of Shane Darwent

Shane Darwent is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice mines the commercial vernacular that lines American roadways to inform experimental photographic works, large-scale sculpture, and site-responsive installations. Within a landscape designed to overwhelm, Darwent’s practice seeks out a redacted formalism in order to meditate on the transitional nature of these spaces and the shape-shifting economic constructs of which they are a part. Exhibiting internationally, Darwent has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ragdale, the Ucross Foundation, and the Jentel Artist Residency Program, as well as a Core Fellow at Penland School of Crafts. He holds an MFA from the University of Michigan (2017) and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2005). Darwent’s work is included in the publication 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow, by Thames & Hudson (2019). His solo exhibitions include Sun Smoke, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York City (2021); Plaza Park, Boise State University (2019); The Setting Stone, University of Tulsa (2019); and Suburban Psalm, Spring Break Art Show, NYC (2018). He is an artist-in-residence at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, OK (2018–2023).

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2022

Website / Social Links

My sculptural practice recontextualizes storefront awnings into hauntingly buoyant, formal gestures. Awnings hover as threshold objects in our built landscape, extending the architecture of private enterprise into the realm of public space. They are signs and shelters at once, whose surfaces record the constant evolution of commercial aspirations and a running list of our own desires. My custom fabricated awnings-turned-sculptures are shown standing upright, nested into one another, or engaging curiously with their surroundings.”